“House Republicans impeached Bill Clinton.
Then Republicans won the House again in next election.
And Republicans won the Senate again.
And Republicans won the White House.
It’s a political myth that the Clinton impeachment hurt Republicans.”
-Lawrence O’Donnell
Fmr. Counsel and Staff Dir. for Senate Finance Committee
Please share widely!
Impeachment is not bad politics.
Groundless impeachment on fabricated grounds as an attempted political assassination is corrupt and immoral even if it is good politics. Deserved impeachment on solid ground is a necessary duty even if it is bad politics.
In this case, the evidence already strongly suggests that Mr. Trump is far worse than Richard Nixon.
Mr. Nixon’s supporters in the House and Senate peeled off as the impeachment hearings revealed the full scope of his offenses.
The analogous process can only begin when Mr. Nadler begins impeachment hearings today.
Republicans LOST seats in Congress in 1998, a rare feat for the non-presidential party in a midterm.
It is true that the GOP lost four House seats in the mid-terms of 1998.
The mid-term elections were in November of 1998. The Republicans impeached Mr. Clinton in December, a few weeks after those mid-terms. Since the impeachment of Mr. Clinton hadn’t happened yet, I suggest that it is incorrect to attribute the loss of a handful of seats to the impeachment. The GOP held a 223-211 majority after those elections.
It is a matter of public historical record that Mr. Nixon resigned specifically because his impeachment and subsequent conviction was inevitable. That would not have happened had the 93rd Congress abrogated its constitutional obligations.
On the other hand. consider the aftermath of the near-impeachment of Richard Nixon. The Democrats gained FIFTY seats — going from 242 to 291 — after the evidence against Richard Nixon was put in the public record through the impeachment hearings. Those hearings began on May 9, 1974. Mr. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974 — only three months later.
The Democrats currently hold a 235-198 majority, well beyond the GOP hold on the House in 1998. We can afford the loss of four seats, if it comes to that.
The decision to begin impeachment hearings should be predicated on the evidence of treason, high crimes, and misdemeanors — NOT political expedience.
Just one quibble though. Although the impeachment vote technically occurred in December following the 1998 elections, the Republicans were clearly going full speed ahead with their plans to impeach prior to November and the results were widely interpreted at the time (correctly I think) as a rebuke to that.
Regarding Nixon, whenever I watch a show on Watergate footage is included of masses of protesters in DC chanting “IMPEACH NIXON NOW!” within a year and a half of his winning one of the biggest landslides in history. Trump is arguably at least as bad as Nixon and has the distinction of posting the biggest discrepancy in history between electoral vote win and popular vote loss, but I have yet to see the equivalent mass protests and polls I’ve seen show the public ‘meh’ on impeachment at best. Do you (or anyone else reading this) have any insight as to why that might be?
I agree that the GOP clearly intended to impeach Mr. Clinton during the 1998 mid-terms — and lost just four seats. I’ll take that risk in advance of the 2020 election.
A important factor in all that was that pretty much all of America could see that the grounds for impeachment were insubstantial and flagrantly partisan. The Starr investigation had gone on for years, cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, traveled down one rat-hole after another, and after all that came up with an allegation that Mr. Clinton lied about oral sex with a consenting adult. Most Americans correctly viewed the entire effort as nothing but a partisan political attack without substance.
The ringleaders of that attack were the hyper-partisan extremists from the Nixon era who perpetuated the lie that the Mr. Nixon had done nothing wrong and was the victim of a left-wing liberal conspiracy between the Democrats and “liberal” media. The impeachment of Bill Clinton was an attempted payback, and was never intended as anything else.
I don’t know what to say about the difference between the culture of the early 1970s and now. One difference is that governments have learned how to rope-a-dope protests so that they have no real impact. The media treat a major protest as at most a minor item in a single news-cycle. Protesters themselves have become so well-behaved that the entire thing becomes pointless. The carefully cordoned off “first amendment zones” during the Democratic convention in Boston exemplify that. A second difference is the extreme apathy exhibited by most Americans today. As a society, we are less well informed, less literate, less passionate (at least about public affairs) and more self-centered.
I sadly have to agree entirely with Tom’s last paragraph here. I also think a major difference is the media and political environment has shifted. You can typically count me as a lefty skeptical of the “bipartisan better times” narrative we hear so much about, I do think the Watergate era was a better time to check a president from three key standpoints.
1) Citizens were way more active and engaged
(Vietnam+Civil Rights+Womens Rights+Stonewall+26th amendment all at once)
2)Better media environment
(only 3 networks-all generally objective and professional in their reporting-gavel to gavel coverage with objective analysis on all three channels. No way to tune out like today, no nakedly partisan networks like today, no market of misinformation online)
3) Congress had a sense of duty.
Most had served in a war to beat back dictators and they opposed the USSR. It was very crucial our own executive could be checked, and once the evidence became irrefutable, the GOP joined in with Goldwater delivering the news and Thompson and Baker delivering some of the toughest questions.
If the Democrats can’t get the necessary votes, impeachment is a stupid, losing proposition.
If there is the potential to get the necessary votes, why not do something positive on health care,or taxes, instead?
Installing Mike Pence seems like a waste of bi-partisanship.
We have to put country ahead of party too, and Pence is not nearly as embarrassing or incompetent, though he is more of a true-believer than Trump.
To quote Ms. Warren’s email from Friday:
The only way for the Democrats to get the necessary votes is to conduct impeachment hearings. No responsible official will attempt to remove a sitting president in the absence of evidence, and impeachment hearings provide that evidence. Any impeachment resolution(s) should be brought forward based on the evidence developed by those hearings.
There is some evidence that Mr. Pence is compromised by the same conspiracy that brought Mr. Trump into power. I remind you that Spiro Agnew was forced from office during the Watergate investigation (although of course for unrelated crimes). The evidence might well show that the entire GOP power structure has been turned by various means. The Trump administration is notable for its corruption, lies, and incompetence.
The result of a well-conducted investigation might well be that Ms. Pelosi is the incumbent president going into the 2020 election.
The subject of this post is the politics of impeachment. Senator Warren argues that we must put politics aside.
If you think there is any possibility of Pelosi becoming president you are putting reality aside.
Let’s all try to stay on topic.
Ms. Warren is the first Democratic presidential candidate to call for impeachment proceedings to begin. That is itself a significant political event. It is a particularly effective way to separate herself from the field, and that will be even more important if and when the impeachment process gains momentum.
I think that you know as well as I do that when she calls for officials to “put politics aside”, she is making a bold political statement.
You asked a specific question: “why not do something positive on health care,or taxes, instead?”
Ms. Warren eloquently answers your question.
I wish Sen Warren well, and her statement about impeachment may make political sense. However, for Congressional Democrats to actually try to impeach would be a net loser, politically, for the reasons I already stated.
Speaking of Agnew, I recommend Rachel Maddow’s 7-episode podcast “Bagman” which last I checked was still accessible via MSNBC’s website. One of the things that is discussed therein was the urgency regarding removing Agnew from the line of succession precisely because the writing was already on the wall for Nixon.
Donald Trump is no Bill Clinton. Bill at least knew when to shut up during his impeachment. Trump will be lashing out, not sleeping,it might be just what will push him over the edge. I think Elizabeth Warren knows how to handle this bully and it’s looking him directly in the eye and pointing the finger square at him in the light of day. Trump lived in a personal business world where he was feared. Even his television show was one where everyone lived in fear of being fired.
If impeached, he will do whatever he can to be feared, and that might be what finally takes him down.
Democrats won the 2018 election with a back to basics pivot to bread and butter economics. This is also how they win the 2020 election. It’s still the economy stupid, always has been. Any voter who cares about impeachment is already voting for the Democrats. Any voter who thinks Trump is innocent is already voting for the Republicans. There are very few voters on the fence because the issue is too opaque and hard to follow, but many more of them on the sidelines. We want these upper left hand quadrant voters to give our party another look, They are way too low info to understand what obstruction of justice means, but they absolutely understand what losing their health care coverage means or not getting the tax cut they were promised.